Awakening To A Nightmare
by Shutterbug5269
Summary: Kate thought bitterly to herself, "They were supposed to be after me, leaving was supposed to keep Castle safe, but it had only made him a target." Not going to delve into the Dragon or the case more of a Castle/Beckett/Alexis relationship story.
1. Broken Recovery

**Chapter One  
Broken Recovery  
**

It had been a long two months for Kate Beckett. She had been certain she did the right thing by hiding away at her father's fishing camp in the Adirondacks all summer. Hidden away where no one could find her while she recovered from her shooting. Her dad waiting on her hand and foot until she could do for herself, then she sent even him away, though he hadn't gone far, he had friends just up the road whom he stayed with while she licked her wounds alone.

She agonized over the words Castle had spoken to her as she lay bleeding in the grass of the cemetery. Words she kept trying to convince herself he hadn't meant and failing miserably. Agonizing over the lie she had told, and the promise to call him in a few days, which had strayed to a few weeks, to two months. The nightmares of him dying in her place robbing her of sleep every night.

She had re-read every one of his books, trying to find the magic in his words, the spark in them that had saved her before but every time she thought she was close to it she remembered her own.

_Some things are better off not being remembered._

The look on his face when she told that lie and sent him on his way said everything she needed to know.

Suddenly there was a rattling at her front door, a loud insistent pounding. Her hand went immediately to her small 9mm Glock, her backup piece, which she kept under her pillow. Her heart began throbbing loudly in her chest as she flicked off the safety, chambered a round and rose painfully from her bed. Pistol in hand she strode unsteadily to the front of the cabin as she heard a key in the lock.

Just as she pulled the pistol up into a shaky Weaver stance, her father burst into the cabin, out of breath. She managed to get the gun down, behind her back before he could see it as he caught his breath.

"Katie pack a bag, we need to go to New York, now!" he said.

"What! Why?" she said. Shakily.

At her questioning look, her father shoved the morning's copy of the Ledger into her hands. On the front page it read: _**MYSTERY WRITER STABBED IN HOME INVASION**. _Under the headline was a publicity photo of Richard Castle and photo from the scene of a distraught Alexis being held by her grandmother taken by a photojournalist. As she scanned the story, it stated, citing a source in the hospital, that he had been stabbed multiple times and was in critical condition.

Her father hastily threw some of her clothes and a change of shoes into a duffel bag and met her at his Ford Explorer for the three hour drive. She spent nearly the entire trip with her head buried in her hands, sobbing quietly. As she thought bitterly to herself, _"They were supposed to be after me, leaving was supposed to keep Castle safe, but it had only made him a target."_

"What have I done," she whispered over and over again, "Dear God, what have I done"


	2. Confrontation

**Chapter Two**

**Confrontation**

Alexis Castle sat in the private waiting room near the ICU, clutching onto her grandmother for dear life. Her father had only recently come out of surgery. The doctor had already come out to reveal that the damage done to her father's left lung, liver, kidneys and small intestine by the knife wielding psycho who had attacked her father and vandalized his office (smashing his smart board and making off with it's CPU and hard drive) had necessitated placing him in a medically induced coma so that his body might be able to recover from the multiple critical injuries.

How long he would be on life support would depend on how well his lungs were able to function in the next few days, though he might be in the coma for the next few weeks while his body absorbed and repaired the damage done to it. She had been in his room for a few minutes shortly after surgery and had to be dragged sobbing from his bedside by her grandmother and Detective Ryan who had come of his own accord to provide moral support, along with copious amounts of flower arrangements from various members of the 12th Precinct (including a young lab tech from the ME's office named Jen Conley who had only known him a few days before he had been kicked out by Captain Gates) She was grateful for his presence.

_'At least_ some _people at the precinct still appreciate him,'_ Alexis thought spitefully to herself, _'unlike __**her**__.'_ She found that even in her thoughts, it was difficult to mention Kate Beckett's name. The mere thought of her made the young redhead practically seethe with rage. Yes, she still felt bad that she had been shot, even felt sympathy for the physical pain she must be in, but it was what she had done after that which she found to be unforgivable. Disappearing without so much as a text message, note, or phone call, leaving her father to the misery of his darkest imaginations and worst case scenarios.

He had been a broken shell of himself _before_ the break in. Before his assailant had plunged his knife into his back and left him to die. Now, Alexis could not be sure he would even have enough fight left in him to survive his injuries. The detective may not be to blame for his current predicament, but, as far Alexis Castle was concerned, she had _definitely_ hampered his ability to recover from it.

Martha Rodgers had tried to comfort Alexis as best she could, but she was hurting too. _This was her only son, breathing on a respirator God damn it._ She may not have always been the best mother on the planet, but she loved him fiercely. Every bruise, every scraped knee, every twisted ankle he had ever gotten growing up had twisted her in knots, made her doubt her fitness as a mother. This, however was ten times worse than even the worst of those.

He was in pain before this, she knew that. Detective Beckett's shooting had ramped up his guilt about bringing her mother's case up. Her disappearance had him wallowing in it. She only hoped that eventually the foolish girl would come around, maybe when she recovered she would be able to see what Martha already knew from bitter experience, you rarely get more than one chance at love, and you should grab it with both hands while you have it. There would always be time later for regrets. She, herself had been down this road twice. Though both times had led her to regret, one of those times had given her Richard, and the other had given her renewed purpose.

Her reverie was only broken by the opening elevator doors. Framed in them was a very pale, slender, frail looking young woman she barely recognized as Kate Beckett. She seemed small and broken in her ballet flats as opposed to the four inch heels she usually wore. She also seemed to lack the confidence and fire that had always made her son swell up with admiration.

Her entrance had not gone unnoticed, as Alexis rose sharply from her seat. Anger and indignation beginning to swell within her, giving power and authority to her willowy frame where the broken shell of Kate Beckett seemed to have neither.

"Finally come out from under your rock, have you, _Detective_?" She said angrily.

She could not have wounded Kate more had she slapped her in the face. Martha didn't think the young detective could get much paler, but she did. She practically wilted under Alexis' penetrating glare. Ryan attempted to get up to intervene, but Martha put a hand to his shoulder and stilled him, cutting him off with a glance. She knew Alexis wouldn't actually harm Kate, but she needed to get this out in the open.

"I'm sor..." Beckett began to say, her lower lip quivering, but Alexis cut her off.

"_**DON'T YOU DARE**_!" Alexis shouted, before lowering her voice to a stage whisper "Don't you dare tell me you're sorry, not after what you've put him through. His attacker may have gotten him everywhere else, but before that he got stabbed in the heart by you!"

As Alexis spoke, Kate backed away from her, but Alexis pressed her attack, not giving Kate a moment to breathe, or any space to run. Without conscious thought, her hand shot out and grabbed her by the hair.

"Were you curious?" she hissed, "Did you come to see? Well come on then, _Detective_, take a good long look at what you reduced him to!" as she half dragged Kate by the hair to the door of the ICU shouldered it open and pulled her inside, forcing her to look. "Are you happy now?"

"**ALEXIS HARPER CASTLE**!" Came the sharp, angry tone from Martha Rodgers, "You let her go this instant!" The unexpected fire from her grandmother drew her up sharply and cut her off. She instantly released the handful of Kate's hair and backed away in shock, staring at her open hands.

As Kate meekly followed her out into the waiting room, her eyes wide as saucers at what she had seen. Richard Castle, with a tube down his throat, hooked up to machines breathing for him, his eyes closed, his muscles slack. IV's everywhere. It was all of her nightmares from the previous two months made manifest right before her very eyes. Her heart rate climbed as she began to hyperventilate, as the panic attack gripped her, consumed her.

As her father stepped off of the elevator, her eyes saw only shadows, and she slid bonelessly to the floor.


	3. Consequences

**Chapter Three**

**Consequences**

Martha swiftly bypassed Alexis, shooting the girl a piercing, angry look, as she knelt beside Kate's unconscious form. She took off her jacket, folded it up and placed it under the young woman's head as Jim Beckett rushed from the elevator to kneel at his stricken daughter's side. His face was an open book of his obvious distress. As he gently picked her up and Detective Ryan helped him ease her onto the couch in the waiting room, Martha rose to her full height and rounded on the still shocked Alexis.

"What did you do?" she stage whispered at her, unconcealed reproach in her tone.

Kate might not have rated very highly on Martha's hit parade either lately, but what Alexis had done to the clearly still wounded detective was both reprehensible, and completely out of character for Alexis. She slid an apologetic look to Jim Beckett, who nodded slightly, took Alexis by the hand, and dragged her farther from the couch where Kate lay.

"Nuh...nothing, Grams...I swear!" the young girl stammered, still shocked and rather mortified, both at her own actions, and at the tone her grandmother had taken with her. She had never heard the _"mom"_ voice before, (she doubted her own mother could convincingly pull one off, actress or no) at least not directed at her, and certainly not from her generally easygoing grandmother. She hadn't even been aware she _**had**_ a _"mom"_ voice...until now.

"I...I just made her look at dad...had to make her see...she just left him behind...just walked away from him without a...without a backward look...like...like his feelings meant _nothing_ to her."

Alexis jumped, when she heard a gentle throat clearing behind her.

"I think I can most definitely refute that statement, young lady." Jim Beckett said quietly, trying to balance his sympathy for the young girl, who's father was in the next room on life support, with his indignation at the girl's rough treatment of his still broken daughter. "In fact she cares for him a great deal."

Martha and Jim exchanged looks, before he continued.

"Though I doubt you necessarily set off this particular panic attack, I'm pretty sure it was well on it's way by the time Kate got here."

"She has panic attacks?" Alexis asked, her hands rising to cover her shocked expression.

With that, the realization dawned on the teenager just how low she had fallen. From a daughter's righteous indignation to the status of schoolyard bully in less than ten minutes. She bowed her head as shame warred with her feelings of anger toward Kate, and shame won out. She was still upset, no, _angry_ with Kate for how she had trampled on her father's heart, but how she expressed it left her feeling pangs of guilt. Her father would not have approved of her behavior, and she knew it.

For the first time since Detective Beckett emerged from the elevator, she began to analyze the situation with something _approaching_ logic. The look in her eyes had not been curiosity, it had been fear. Fear of what she might see. Fear bordering on absolute panic, which she had pushed to the breaking point when she had dragged her _by her hair_ into the ICU. Forcing her to look before she could prepare herself for what was beyond that door.

Fear she had callously disregarded in her angry desire to wreak vengeance on her, to make herself feel better at the expense of a woman who not only could not, but _would not_ defend herself. Alexis had seen Kate's weakness and exploited it, and now she felt...unclean.

Before, she realized fully what she was doing, her feet had carried her slowly across the floor of the waiting room toward the couch where Kate lay with her father's jacket covering her pale, gaunt, too-thin frame. She didn't notice Det. Ryan rise from his seat nearby to intercept her, nor Jim Beckett's quiet signal waving him off as she knelt beside her head.

Alexis absentmindedly brushed a lock of Kate's hair from her face and secured it behind her ear before bursting into tears as she truly studied the woman's haggard appearance for the first time. Her sunken eyes with the dark baggy circles under them and her wan, emaciated features. Obvious signs that she had likely slept very poorly the last two months and barely thought to feed herself properly. How the summer must have been every bit as miserable for her as it had been for her dad. Possibly even worse.

Alexis buried her face in her hands and finally let go for the first time since she had discovered her father face down in his trashed study in a pool of his own blood and dialed 911. As the wracking, choking sobs began to overtaker her, she felt a hand in her shoulder. Detective Ryan's gesture, so like one her father might have used, caused her to fully come undone, she rose to her feet and buried her face in his chest and completely broke down.

As Ryan slowly wrapped his arms around Castle's daughter, he cast a solemn, though confused look at Martha, unsure of what he was supposed to do with a sobbing tearful "little Castle". She merely cast him a sympathetic look from across the room. She had just finished playing bad cop, it seemed only fair to allow the seriously uncomfortable Kevin Ryan to play good cop. He seemed to be a natural for the role.

Once she was sure that Alexis would be in good hands for the time being, and that she would not be repeating her earlier negative behavior, Martha took Jim Beckett by the arm and led him around the corner.

"It looks as though _both_ of our children have left us with messes to clean up, haven't they?" She asked sagely.

"I agree, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do." Jim Beckett replied with a sigh, "Katie froze me out once she was back on her feet, every bit as much as she has everyone else who cares about her. When her mother died, I just shut down, crawled into a bottle and stayed there, leaving her to pick up the pieces."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and continued.

"I just didn't have any parental leverage on her after that. I can't seem to make her see the damage she's doing, not only to herself but to the people who love her."

He made a very careful assessment of the state of his shoes, as his shoulders fell before finding the courage to continue his line of reasoning.

"I'm the one who convinced Rick to confront her, to try to make her stop. Because I was too ashamed, too cowardly to do it myself. Maybe if I hadn't driven that wedge between them...maybe she would have let him in, let him help her, like I know she wanted to all this summer. Maybe he would have been with Katie instead of at home when the break-in occurred."

Martha sighed loudly, then placed her hand under his chin and forced his head up until his eyes met hers.

"I'm going to tell you what I told Richard when Kate was shot. You are _not_ the one who shot her, and you are _not_ the one who attacked my son. Do you understand?"

Jim nodded weakly, in a gesture not unlike one Rick would have made, and she continued,

"I wasn't exactly the greatest mother for Richard, either, but we both need to step up now, be the parents we should have been to them years ago. They need us, more than ever, even if they can't, or won't see it."

"What am I supposed to do?" Jim implored, "Katie won't listen to me. The first chance she gets, she'll run away and hide again, try to stare down her demons herself. Something I know from painful experience doesn't work, will only make things worse. She's too scared and too stubborn to see it."

"Then we need to appeal to her better nature, her urge to protect others. Her sense of duty and obligation." Martha replied, a devious smirk slowly crossing her features. "Maybe kill two birds with the same stone."

She looked both ways nervously, as if the merest thought of what she was about to say might magically find it's way to her son's comatose ears.

"Richard would probably disown me for revealing this to you, but he told me once that Kate promised to take care of Alexis if anything ever happened to him." and the devious smile once again rose on her face, hoping Jim would rise to the challenge, which he did.

"Oh...really?" Jim muttered, as his inner contract lawyer began to examine the possibilities that Martha had dangled in front of him with her revelation, "I think I can work with that. My Katie was always one to keep her word, even when she was a little girl. Her mother always knew how to use that to her advantage."

"What say you, counselor?" Martha asked, as the devious grin spread in full force across her face, "Shall we break the news to our respective clients?"

"What about Alexis?" Jim asked, "Won't she require some convincing?"

"Oh, I can wield guilt as well as the next mother, don't you worry. Though if I know my granddaughter...and believe me I do, she will probably only require a nudge in the right direction and then her own guilty conscience will do all the work."

As the two of them shook hands conspiratorially, Jim Beckett was struck with the thought that he was glad that Richard Castle's mother was an actress and not a lawyer, or a judge. He would never want to have to cross swords with her in a courtroom.


	4. Nightmares and Dreamscapes

**Chapter Four  
****Nightmares and Dreamscapes**

_Richard Castle was dimly aware of his surroundings, but couldn't seem to wake up. He wanted to. He was trying to. He could hear voices he recognized but not what they were saying. Everything was dark, but he simply could not get his eyes to open. He wanted to run, tried to get up but everything felt numb, his arms and legs unresponsive to his commands. He tried to scream, but no sounds would come out. He could hear Alexis sobbing somewhere but could not find her. Layered over all of these sensations was the intoxicating scent of cherries. "Kate..."_

"_Blood pressure's dropping! He's coding!"_

"_Asystole!"_

"_**Daddy!"**_

"_Get them out of here!"_

"_Begin CPR!"_

"_Get the crash cart, stat!"_

"_**Castle!"**_

"_I said get them _**out**_ of here!"_

"_Charging!"_

"_Stop CPR! Clear!"_

"_Resume CPR"_

"_Get him re-entubated...now!"_

"_Tube is in, ventilator cycling"_

"_He's stabilizing, BP 98 over 60 and climbing."_

**Seven days earlier**

"But...but...**_daddy_**..." Kate complained, trying to wrest back control of the situation from her father.

"Katie, you gave him your word." Jim Beckett warned, suddenly reclaiming the authority he once had when she was a little girl.

"But..." Kate stammered

"You heard me, Katie bug. I made my share of mistakes after your mother died, but we raised you to honor your word."

"Shouldn't she stay with her grandmother?" she argued weakly, knowing she was in a losing fight now.

"Their home is an active crime scene, Katie." Jim countered, as if cross examining a hostile witness, "You know what that means, they can't stay there or risk contaminating the scene. There simply isn't room at Martha's acting studio for them both and it's too far from Alexis' school and the hospital."

"But she _hates_ me, and after the way I left things with her father, I don't blame her." Kate mumbled sullenly, tears forming in her eyes.

"Then she's going to have to live with it, Katie. So are you. You're the adult here, not her, it's well past time you started _acting_ like one."

Kate closed her eyes and bowed her head, because she knew that tone. She hadn't heard it from him since she was eighteen, but she knew what it meant. He'd backed her into a corner and was now refusing to budge. Of all the times she would have wanted her father to become _"dad"_ again, he had to choose now, damn him.

….

"But _Grams_!" Alexis whined, as guilty as she might have felt about her behavior earlier that afternoon, she couldn't stomach the idea of living with Detective Beckett _in her apartment _for what looked like the foreseeable future.

"Alexis, your father's wishes were quite clear, he even filed legal paperwork at the time making Kate your guardian ad litem in case he was ever incapacitated."

"But...But..." Alexis tried to get in a word edgewise, but was stymied by her grandmother.

"Alexis, the loft is an active crime scene, there isn't room at the acting studio for both of us, and we don't know how long your father is going to be out of it."

"But..." Alexis tried again and this time Martha went in for the kill,

"You saw what happened today when Kate is subjected to too much stress. She goes into a panic attack and collapses, I'm told she also has really bad nightmares and flashbacks too."

Martha let that hang in the air for a moment for dramatic effect, allowing her granddaughter's guilty conscience to fill in the blanks.

"Somebody needs to take care of her, try to keep her calm. Make sure she eats, takes her medication, and makes sure she gets enough rest. Her father _can't_ do it, she can too easily steamroll or guilt trip him into getting her way."

"But because of her promise to dad she won't fight _me_ as much." Alexis added quietly, as her lingering guilt over her earlier actions brought her to the conclusion that Martha desired.

"Precisely dear one, just like she wouldn't fight you when you grabbed her by the hair."

Alexis bowed her head, knowing that her grandmother had won. She would be moving in with Kate Beckett. She may have resigned herself to it, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

….

**Meanwhile at the Castle Loft**

"I'm not kidding, Javi, for a minute there, I thought Little Castle was going to kick Beckett's ass." Ryan said, as he related to his partner the events he had witnessed that afternoon in the waiting room.

It wasn't that Esposito didn't trust his partner, he just could not wrap his mind around the idea of Castle's cute, sweet matured, even tempered little girl going at Beckett the way he described. He understood her anger though. To an extent they all shared it.

When she did a runner at the beginning of the summer, she had run out on all of them, not just Castle. It had merely hit him and Lanie the hardest. He had seen the man drag himself into the precinct every day for nearly two months, looking like warmed over death, helping them work her shooting. Saw the pain in his eyes every day as each lead went cold. Saw a little more despair creep into his eyes every day she didn't call him like she'd promised.

That was until the new captain, Victoria Gates thanked him for his service to the NYPD and kicked him to the curb. After that it was like he too disappeared off the face of the planet. Though at least he answered his phone when they called, generally on the first ring. Until the call came in from the 911 dispatcher that there was a break in and near lethal assault at the Castle loft.

He and Ryan had arrived on the scene bare moments before the ambulance. If Alexis hadn't been awakened by the commotion and acted as quickly as she had, Beckett would have come home to his funeral. In all honesty, he wouldn't have blamed Little Castle if she had kicked her ass. As hurt and as screwed up by her shooting as she may have been, there were some things you just shouldn't do to the people who care about you. Chica needed the wake up call.

God only knows Castle wouldn't have been up to it.

….

**7:00 PM  
Kate Beckett's Apartment**

Kate Beckett turned her key in the lock of her apartment door for the first time in two months. As she swung the door all the way open, she held it to admit Alexis Castle into the apartment. They had stopped at the Castle loft as Ryan escorted Alexis upstairs to collect her things from her room. More accurately wait uncomfortably at the open door to her room while she collected her clothes, school supplies, toiletries and other assorted items he had no desire to know about.

The small talk with Javi had been polite enough, but she could tell by his tone that he was not exactly happy with her at the moment. It hurt a lot that he didn't understand why she had to do what she did. Of all of her friends and co-workers she thought at least Espo would get it. But no, it seemed she had hurt just about everyone she cared about, if the ten messages from Lanie were any indication. The last one, received the day before her father had burst into the cabin had been positively scathing in her reproach for how her disappearance and lack of communication had effected not only Castle but all of them.

Kate hunched her shoulders, defeated. Entrusted with the health and safety of the most important person in Richard Castle's world, as her own seemed to be crashing down around her. It was what she had fled to the Adirondacks to avoid, but now was going to have to face head on.

Alexis practically burned with contempt for her, laced with something resembling pity. Before the girl's stay was over she was sure that she would be read chapter and verse about what her disappearance had done to her father.

She was dreading it.


	5. Common Ground

**Chapter Five  
****Common Ground**

For the first full day of their parentally enforced (read manipulated) cohabitation, Kate and Alexis remained as far apart as her split level apartment would allow. Kate was nervous, apprehensive, and more than a little afraid to face the obviously distraught and angry teenager, so she retreated to her bedroom with three of Castle's books. (Storm Fall and the first two Nikki Heats) She couldn't recall exactly when Heat Rising was supposed to come out yet, but she was hesitant to broach the topic (or any other for that matter) with Alexis just yet.

Since she could think of little else to do, Alexis did what she always did...her homework. Which she dutifully e-mailed to the dean of students at Marlowe Prep., to pass on to her teachers. She was supposed to be taking time off from school because of the break-in and her father's hospitalization, but homework gave her something to focus on. Allowed her to clear her head, allowed her to think clearly, and she really did need the diversion.

When Alexis' stomach grumbled, she knew that it was well past dinner time. She couldn't recall eating more than the granola bar and cup of hot chocolate she had grabbed at lunch time and brought to the guest room in Kate's apartment which she now occupied. She couldn't help but subconsciously compare it to her room in the loft. Though it seemed smaller, more intimate.

She had made a point of going grocery shopping that morning, as she remembered her father's oft repeated lament on the sorry state of Kate's pantry and refrigerator. Upon moving in, she had found that for once he had neither embellished (much) nor exaggerated. If she was going to stay here indefinitely, she would eventually need to broach the topic of proper nutrition. The woman looked like a walking scarecrow as it is. Upon entering the kitchen, she absentmindedly began pulling the ingredients she would need from the cupboards and refrigerator and set herself to work on another task to clear her mind...cooking for two.

Kate's first reminder that she should really eat something was the wonderful aroma coming from the direction of the kitchen. After which her long undernourished body betrayed her when her stomach began to growl. She slid her mother's bookmark into page 102 of Heat Wave (it would have been perverse to place something of her mother's any closer to page 105) and was about to investigate the enticing odor when a quiet, tentative-sounding knock sounded on her bedroom door.

Kate opened it to reveal a mildly apprehensive Alexis standing in her bedroom doorway, holding a try with a heaping bowl of homemade macaroni and cheese flanked by a small plate of assorted sliced fruit and a cup of the hot chocolate reminiscent of the cup she had made after her previous apartment blew up. Kate stood in the doorway staring at the girl for a moment in stunned silence.

"Thank you, Alexis," she finally managed to get past her vocal chords, "you didn't need to go to so much trouble."

Kate smiled weakly, trying to keep her expression light, but still show her gratitude.

"I...uh...was hungry...and your dad...I mean Mr. Beckett...asked me to make sure you...you know...ate, and..."

Alexis trailed off nervously as she slid the tray into Kate's outstretched hands, shifted uncomfortably on her feet for a moment, then promptly bolted before Kate could say anything in response.

Kate looked down at the tray in her hands, and made a mental note to eat everything on it, regardless of her appetite. Considering their confrontation the day before, this was a massive gesture on her part. Not just preparing the food, but delivering it to her personally, along with the type of personal touches (such as the special cup of hot chocolate) that she would have shared with her father under similar circumstances. Obviously Rick was not the only Castle who knew what she needed before she, herself did.

Making such a gesture had obviously taken an emotional toll on the girl, and she would not allow it to be in vain. She desperately wanted to bridge this chasm between herself and Castle's daughter before it became an insurmountable barrier. Otherwise he would in time be forced to choose between them, and she knew in her heart what the only correct choice would be, and it would not (and should not) be her.

….

**2:45 AM**

Kate startled awake, a choked sob on her lips, Castle calling her name, pleading in vain for help that would never come echoing in her mind. She sat bolt upright in bed, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. Her breathing coming in shallow, ragged sobs. Tears following dried tracks on her cheeks.

Try as she might she just couldn't get the tears and the sobbing under control as she rose unsteadily to her feet and stumbled toward the bathroom situated about halfway between her room and the guest quarters where Alexis was sleeping. At least she hadn't cried out loudly enough in her sleep to wake the poor girl, she had obviously not slept well over the past forty eight hours since finding her father bleeding in his study. She really did want what was best for her.

She ran water in the sink until it was cold to the touch and splashed it on her face before soaking a wash cloth and applying it to the back of her neck. Her bed clothes were soaked through with sweat and beginning to feel clammy in the cooler air, so she changed into a fresh set of yoga pants, underwear and sweatshirt before exiting the bathroom, when she heard a faint sound coming from the guest room.

As she got closer she could hear Alexis' voice more distinctly through the door, which was slightly ajar.

"Daddy!" her voice was quiet, but it clearly carried, and sounded almost pleading.

"Don't die, daddy...please don't die...please..."

Kate pushed the door open and saw her tossing and turning in her sleep, her fiery red hair a riot of curls. She moved swiftly and quietly to her side and began to quietly whisper comforting soothing words in her ear, as the girl clutched her in her sleep. Kate ran her fingers through Alexis' hair, smoothing it.

"Shh," Kate whispered, trying not to wake her.

She knew from experience how disconcerting it could be to be forced awake in the middle of such dreams, her own father had made that mistake early in her convalescence. The resulting panic attack had so rattled them both that he made a point of never doing it again.

"It's ok Alexis, everything will be ok...shh."

Kate continued alternating between quietly whispered words, rubbing soothing circles on Alexis' back and smoothing her hair until she stilled. As her breathing settled into a more steady rhythm. She quietly turned away, curled into a fetal position and drifted into a calmer, deeper sleep.

Kate whispered a silent prayer to her mother's memory, her mom had always been the one to calm her when she had nightmares as a child. She carefully brushed an errant lock of hair out of Alexis' face and then spied a small, worn, heavily washed monkey sitting on top of Alexis desk. Castle had told her about that monkey when they worked the Angela Candela kidnapping case. Without thinking, she gently picked it up and slipped it under Alexis' arm before quietly retreating from the room to let her sleep.

A fresh set of tear tracks had begun to form on Kate's cheeks as tears slipped silently from her eyes. In between forced small talk and poorly concealed reproach, Espo had related to her the report from the responding officers at the scene. Alexis would forever have the memory of her father bleeding in her arms burned into her memory. It would haunt her dreams for years to come.

She only hoped it would not be the last memory she had of him.


	6. Benefit of the Doubt

**Chapter Six  
****Benefit of the Doubt**

**9:00 AM**

Alexis Castle woke with a start in an unfamiliar bed. It took a few minutes for her memory to catch up to her that she was in Kate Beckett's guest room. Once her anxiety came down to a more manageable level she began to stir and when she sat up Monkey Bunkey fell out of her blanket and onto the floor. It had been well over a decade since he had gone from constant bedtime companion to cherished childhood keepsake and she didn't recall bringing him with her to bed. Though to be honest she wasn't even completely certain why she had packed him either.

When she arrived in the kitchen fresh from her shower, she found a note on the kitchen island.

_Alexis  
Gone to see the department shrink so  
I can get my badge back. Then off to  
physical therapist to get back in shape  
Will be back late this afternoon. 3PM at the  
latest. There is breakfast in the warmer.  
~Kate~_

Alexis retrieved the tray of food from the warmer, and when she lifted the lid covering the plate, she found a short stack of pancakes, each one wearing a smiley face of thinly sliced strawberries cooked into it. Alexis nearly fell over in shock. Not knowing how she had learned not only about smiley face pancakes, but that she preferred hers with strawberries. A note on the tray also informed her that there was a yogurt parfait waiting for her in the refrigerator. She sniffed a little and wiped aside a tear in spite of herself before she grabbed the yogurt parfait from the fridge and poured the maple syrup onto her pancakes.

Her phone pings a few minutes later as she's washing her breakfast dishes. It's Paige with today's homework, plus her own snarky commentary about her being the only person she knows who could get a "get out of school free pass" and _still_ want to do homework. She smiles thinly.

Alexis knows all of her friends think she's a bit of a freak, obsessing about her homework whilst her dad was in a coma. Even Marlowe Preparatory Academy's administrators were concerned about her well being. But right now, getting her homework done was something she could control.

When everything else in her life was spinning off into an unstable orbit, studying gave her something to lose herself in, and escape from the despair she felt about her father's condition. '_Now if only I can get the dreams to stop.'_ she thought to herself. Seeing her father face down in his own blood had shaken her to her core, and had forever robbed her of her innocence. She would now always be the victim of a violent crime.

_'Just like Beckett' _the thought rose unbidden to her mind. '_If, _God forbid_ the worst should occur she might actually be the only person I know who'd understand.'_ She squeezed her eyes tight shut and clasped her fists tightly until her palms nearly bled to force that thought back into the dark corner of her soul where it belonged. When the self inflicted pain achieved the desired effect, she opened her textbook and buried herself in American History.

**12:45 PM**

Alexis had just finished the outline for her research paper on the photographers of the Civil War when she heard a knock at the door. Expecting the Chinese she had ordered for her lunch, she was shocked when she opened the door to find, not the delivery boy, but Doctor Josh Davidson.

At the sight of the man who had roughed up her father right in front of her not two months ago, she stiffened, and her eyes narrowed at Kate's "boyfriend".

"Doctor Davidson." she said coldly, "Please come in."

Josh was taken aback by the unexpected sight of Richard Castle's daughter. He swallowed a lump in his throat he hadn't been aware had formed there. After he had been unceremoniously ejected from the waiting room two months ago by Kate's father. He had felt rather ashamed of himself for his unprofessional display after he'd had a chance to cool off, especially when he realized he'd done it in front of Castle's kid.

Kate had been livid with him when she found out about that, slapped him in the face, told him they were done, then told him to get out. Her father had been all too happy to show him the door.

"Detective Beckett isn't here right now," Alexis said, politely, but with a cold edge to her tone, "but she should be back any time now if you would like to wait."

If looks could kill, Josh knew he'd be a pile of ashes on the floor under the cold, spiteful gaze of the young redhead.

"That won't be necessary, Miss Castle," Josh replied, falling back on the formality of his profession "Kate just left some of her things at my place after she broke up with me a couple months ago."

At the young redhead's suddenly confused expression, he asked, "You didn't know?"

"No," she replied, "Dad didn't know either, he thought she was with you right up until his stabbing."

Josh had heard about Richard Castle's stabbing of course, it had been all over the hospital grapevine when he'd gotten back the night before from his return trip to Haiti with Doctors Without Borders. If his experience was any judge, the young lady before him was probably just on the verge of falling apart. He felt like enough of an ass for the way he'd behaved the last time he's seen her. He didn't wish to make things worse.

In his heart he knew there was likely no chance of reconnecting with Kate, anyway. Her heart really did belong to the man lying in a coma in the ICU, probably had before he'd met her if he was being honest with himself. It was long past time he moved on and got on with his life.

"I should probably go." he said quietly, "Please make sure Kate gets these, and tell her I wish her well."

He turned as Alexis moved to close the door for only a moment, and said,

"I really was sorry to hear about your father, I hope he pulls through. I looked at his chart and his prognosis was promising."

Alexis thanked him politely for his good wishes, and then closed the door behind him and pressed her back to it for a moment, while she considered what "Doctor Motorcycle Boy" as her father like to call him had said.

Kate had broken up with him two months ago.

"There might just be some hope for you yet, Kate Beckett." She said out loud to herself, though she still had plenty of other issues with the wounded detective, her stock had gone up exponentially in the teen's mind.

It hit her after she had paid the delivery boy who had showed up mere moments after Dr. Davidson had departed, that Kate had spent the last two months every bit as lonely and miserable as her father had been, made even worse by her injuries, nightmares, panic attacks, and the very real fear that the sniper who had shot her would find her and finish the job. That perhaps her self imposed exile had had a genuine purpose.

Alexis slid slowly down the length of the door and broke down sobbing on the floor. This time not for herself, nor even entirely for her father, but this time she wept bitter tears for Kate Beckett.


	7. Heat of the Moment

**Chapter Seven  
****Heat of the Moment**

When Kate Beckett returned to her apartment, Alexis was nowhere to be seen. Kate was nervous, apprehensive and her anxiety level was heightened by the fact that there seemed to be no trace of the girl downstairs. As she neared the first step leading to the second level where the bedrooms were, she heard a loud, authoritative knock on the door, and nearly jumped out of her skin.

When she got back to the door and opened it, she was met with the wide eyed, angry visage of Lanie Parrish. The fire in her eyes, and the stiffness of her posture were the first signs that this was not to be a casual social call between best friends. That Lanie appeared livid would have been a gross understatement. Unnoticed by both Kate and Lanie, Alexis had appeared at the top of the stairs, drawn by the loud knocking on the front door.

"Girlfriend, you have a _lot_ of explaining to do!" Lanie hissed at her.

Kate visibly paled. Her anxiety level had already been elevated by a particularly grueling and emotional session with Dr. Burke, which had her feeling more jittery and on edge than the workout with her physical therapist could overcome. It didn't help that a car backfiring on the walk to the subway entrance, had set her on the track to an anxiety attack.

A subway car full of ominous looking strangers had her looking over her shoulder almost constantly, and she began seeing the glint of sniper scopes in every reflection off of glass. (there is a LOT of glass in Manhattan) She practically ran the last one hundred feet to the door of her building, taking the stairs because she was too paranoid to get into the elevator.

"Do you have any idea what you've out us all through?" Lanie's voice began to get louder as the door slammed shut behind her. "What you put _me_ through?"

Kate retreated backwards, nearly tripping over the corner of the coffee table, as Lanie continued to advance on her, not giving her any room to retreat as she was backed to the wall. Her anger over what Kate had done to them all blinding her to the subtle cues that something was seriously wrong with her friend.

"Don't _even get me started_ about the unmitigated hell you put _Castle_ through! That man was an absolute _wreck_ after you disappeared! Would it have _killed_ you to pick up a phone, or even send him a text message to let him know you were alive?"

Kate kept trying to say "please, stop.." but though her lips could form the words no sound came out.

"Did it really have to take him nearly being stabbed to death to get you off your self centered ass?"

Kate began to hyperventilate and her eyes glazed over. Visions of Castle lying comatose in the ICU swam into her mind as she broke down, overwhelmed as the panic attack consumed her, she slid down the wall until she was curled in a near fetal position shivering on the floor as Alexis flew down the stairs.

"Stop it!" she shouted, in a thundering bellow no one had never known she possessed. A voice of absolute authority who would not be defied. "You're hurting her! Leave her alone!"

Lanie snapped around, prepared to fight for dominance of the situation, until she was met by the wild eyed fury of Alexis Castle, her fiery red hair, billowing behind her as she strong-armed the medical examiner out of her way forcing her backwards onto the couch.

Alexis knelt beside Kate, gently cradled her head as she pulled her torso into her lap. Gently combing her fingers through Kate's hair, rocking her gently back and forth like she would a small child, she made soothing noises as she cradled the woman she probably would have gladly left to suffer not three days ago.

"Shh, Kate, shh...it's all right, you aren't alone. It's me...Alexis...I've got you...you're safe...shh"

As her ministrations began to have their desired effect on the stricken detective, and she began to relax, Alexis head snapped up to lock eyes with Lanie, pinned in place by the girl's icy stare. Her own expression softened as she took in the truly damaged state that her friend was in as if for the first time.

"Let me help, I'm a doctor..." she began but was cut off by an angrily arched eyebrow from Alexis.

"I think you've done just about enough..._Doctor_ Parrish, so kindly just help me get to her bedroom and then get out. Come back when you can at least try to be civil."

One look at Alexis told her that she wasn't going to get any further with Castle's daughter, oddly enough she was rather impressed as she and the young woman helped Kate to her feet and walked her up the stairs to her bedroom. After removing her shoes button down shirt and her bra, Alexis slid a sweat shirt onto her, then they tucked her into the covers. Once finished, Alexis unceremoniously walked Lanie back downstairs and without further comment, showed her the door.

As she walked out of Kate's building to her waiting car, Lanie couldn't quite stifle a small smile. She dialed Javier Esposito's number, and when he picked up, merely stated the obvious.

"Javi, it looks like there's a new sheriff in town, and her name is Alexis Castle."


	8. Into the Maelstrom

**Chapter Eight  
****Into the Maelstrom**

**3:30 AM**

Kate Beckett awoke with a start. It had been the same nightmare again, one she'd had since she'd come back to New York. Castle, beating on the glass inside of his broken body, unable to reach her, the two of them divided by a wall neither of them could surmount. In her semiconscious morning stupor, flashes of memory from the night before began to flood into her mind. Images of an angry, Lanie mixed with flashes of an avenging angel with flowing red hair. Gentle hands cradling her, soothing her, pushing back the darkness of her panic attack, keeping the demons at bay. She hadn't felt that safe and protected since before her mother died.

As her eyes acclimated to the dim light from a reading lamp, she swept the room slowly with her eyes. In the easy chair in the corner, turned to face the bed, she found Alexis, coiled in the comfortable chair, asleep. A blanket draped across her slender frame, a schoolbook lying open at her feet where it had fallen. '_How long had she sat there keeping vigil over me before succumbing to sleep?'_ Kate thought to herself, _'what did I ever do to deserve such fierce loyalty?' _It brought tears to her eyes, to think that this slender slip of a girl, who not week before had dragged her across a hospital waiting room by her hair, would throw herself at her angry friend like the wrath of God. All on her behalf. She lay back down on her pillow and drifted off into a restful, blissful sleep, free of nightmares for the first time in recent memory.

**9:00 AM**

When Kate woke again, Alexis was sitting on the end of her bed, a tray balanced on her lap, urging her to sit up after shaking her awake. When Kate sat up against the headboard, Alexis slid the tray onto her lap, a short stack of pancakes with one of her signature "cheering up pancakes" on top, a smiley face in chocolate chips along with toast and a glass of orange juice. On the corner of her tray was a Grande paper cup from Starbucks and upon sipping it, she found it to contain a skim latte with two pumps of sugar free vanilla. The girl had actually made a Starbucks run _before_ making breakfast. Her heart warmed almost as much as her stomach did with the infusion of coffee. As she set about eating breakfast, she looked up and saw Alexis walk stiffly out the door and shortly thereafter the shower started running. Considering where the girl slept last night, Kate wasn't surprised.

A short time later, when Alexis returned, hair damp from the shower and much less stiffness in her walk, to retrieve the breakfast dishes.

"Up and at em, Beckett," she said quietly, "Grams called not long ago, they're gonna try removing the breathing tube this afternoon. We should probably be there."

Before she could turn to leave with the breakfast tray, Kate grasped her empty hand loosely.

"Alexis...about yesterday...thanks...what you did for me was..." she couldn't find the words to adequately convey what she felt.

Alexis set down the tray for a moment and laced her fingers with Kate's, unsure what to say in the face of Beckett's unabashed gratitude. She wanted to be able to say _"You'd do it for dad."_ but no matter how much sympathy she had for her, she simply couldn't bring herself to believe that yet, and she didn't like to lie.

"It's nothing that dad wouldn't have done..if he were here." she said quietly, her heart knowing this to be true. _'Even after all the misery she'd put him through this summer_.' was unsaid but hung in the air between them.

Alexis would not allow herself to be blinded to what Kate had done to her father. Maybe one day in the not-too-distant future, she would be able to forgive her, but she would never allow herself to forget. Because she knew her father would, he'd be angry with her, yes, but then he'd take her back like nothing had happened. Unlike Gina and her mother, Kate would always have the power to hurt him terribly...because no matter how much she wished it wasn't so, he truly, deeply loved her.

Always.

Though Alexis had not spoken it aloud, Kate could not help but grasp the subtext of what Rick's daughter had both said and left unsaid. She knew she had hurt him that day in the hospital. She also knew if she had asked him to come to her father's cabin, he would have dropped everything and broken land speed records in the Ferrari to be at her side.

For the first time it had truly dawned on her just how much she had taken him for granted. That he would always be there, waiting for her to make up her mind. Now he was hanging on death's door. The thought that she had waited too long...again overwhelmed her, and this time she might not get a do-over. She had much to answer for. To him, and to Alexis.

If...no..._**when**_ he woke up, this time would be different. Her mother's case, her panic attacks and her walls be damned.

…**.**

It was a little past eleven o'clock by the time Kate had gotten her turn to see Castle in his room. Martha had been with him most of the morning before they arrived, and when Alexis had come out of his room after twenty minutes, her eyes were puffy and red, Kate knew that she had been crying. Though the girl was trying hard to compose herself, Kate could still hear her breathing hitch a little from sobbing over her father.

As Kate entered his room, he had not changed much from when Alexis had forced her in here to look at him. Her own eves were beginning to glisten and water from all of the emotions welling up inside of her. Among them, the desire to run. To flee from this moment, run away and hide like she did earlier in the summer. She forced that feeling down hard, knowing that this instinct is what had charted the course that put him here. It was a voice in the back of her mind that was no longer to be trusted.

She took his hand, laced her small fingers in his slack larger ones and brushed the hair out of his face with her free hand as her own tears streamed down her face, testing the veracity of her streak free mascara. She leaned toward him and kissed his forehead.

"Rick...I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..." she began as her own voice broke, and she fought the urge to begin sobbing, "I lied before...I remember...what you said...I remember...everything...I'm so sorry. I love you Rick...please...please don't die...I need you to wake up...I need you to fight...for me...please..."

Kate's sorrowful pleading trailed off as her self control evaporated and she broke down sobbing into his chest, her tears running onto his hospital gown. A gentle hand descended on her shoulder, it was Martha. She produced a wet washcloth for her that she had procured from the nurse's station and gave it to her to compose herself with. A look of absolute sympathy knit her features as she knew how hard it must have been for her to say those things. She only hoped that Kate would be able to say them to her son when he woke up. He had to wake up. The part of her that was so much his mother would accept no other possibility.

"Kate," she whispered softly, "the doctors are here, it's time."

Kate tenderly gave his hand another gentle squeeze before she let go and slowly backed away from him as Martha took by the arm and led her back to the corner of the room near the door where Alexis was waiting as the attending doctor entered with two nurses and an orderly.

The doctor nodded and one of the nurses turned off the ventilator and disconnected it from the breathing tube as he gently slid it from his throat in a single smooth motion. The energy in the room was palpable as everyone waited for him to begin breathing on his own.

Suddenly, Rick began to convulse as he fought to breathe, and the heart monitor began beeping erratically. He still wasn't breathing.

As the other nurse suddenly produced the breathing bag as his heart rate decreased.

"Blood pressure's dropping!" the nurse declared, "He's coding!"

The beeping stopped followed by a steady wail.

"Asystole!" The nurse called out, emphatically "Code blue!"

Martha latched onto Alexis to keep her back.

"Daddy!" she cried out in terror, fighting against her grandmother's grasp as Kate looked on in shock

"Get them out of here!" the doctor shouted to the orderly, indicating Kate, Alexis and Martha as he went to work.

"Begin CPR!" he called out tersely, "Get me the crash cart! Stat!"

As the large orderly blocked their view and began to herd them toward the door, Kate fought him, pushing down on his arm.

"Castle!" she cried out in both fear and despair.

"I said get them _**out**_ of here!" the doctor bellowed, and they were half dragged out the door as the crash cart was pushed into the room being readied for use by the duty nurse.

"Charging!" she called out, as she applied gel to the paddles and handed them to the doctor.

"Stop CPR! Clear!" the doctor ordered, as he placed the paddles, and as all hands cleared, he depressed the button sending the electric charge into his chest.

"Resume CPR!" He called out as the defibrillator began charging again, "Get him re-entubated, now!"

At his command, the med student next to him unwrapped the new tube and adeptly inserted it into his throat. The nurse pulled the mask from the breathing bag and connected it to the tube to resume rescue breathing while the other nurse re-set the ventilator and checking the portable power supply. She re-connected it to the breathing tube and it began its preset pattern.

"Tube is in, ventilator cycling!" the nurse declared when she was finished.

"BP stabilizing, 88 over 60 and climbing!" the other nurse declared from her position at his head as the heart monitors beeping resumed.

"Get him to x-ray, there's something up with his lungs or maybe his diaphragm, a bone fragment, or piece of the knife maybe, something we missed." The doctor ordered.

Two more orderlies entered with a gurney as the nurses lowered the rails on his bed.

"On three." the lead nurse said as they prepared to move him, "One...two..three!" and he was lifted swiftly, but carefully shifted to the gurney.

As they moved to the door, the doctor gave orders to the lead nurse,

"Davidson came back on rotation yesterday, right?" when she nodded, "Good, page him and get him scrubbed in, we may need to crack this guy, and we'll need our best trauma surgeon on it."

With that, the macabre procession moved for the door.

As the gurney carrying Richard Castle rolled by them, Kate and Alexis stared after it, both sets of eyes wide with unconcealed terror and welling up with tears as they clung helplessly to each other, as Martha led them to the OR waiting room. Though she was overcome with emotions of her own for her stricken son, Martha also noted the sea change between her granddaughter and Kate. A small part of her psyche was pleased with her and Jim Beckett's handiwork.

_'If the worst occurs,'_ she thought to herself, _'at least they'll have each other, because if it does it will likely kill me.'_ She then banished that thought. It had no place in their hearts, least of all hers.

Rick had too much to live for now.


	9. Long Night's Journey into Day

**Chapter Nine  
****Long Night's Journey Into Day**

That Richard Castle had clung stubbornly to life in the operating room for so long was nothing short of amazing. Two times he had gone into cardiac arrest on the operating table and two times Dr. Joshua Davidson cursed him out and dragged him back from the brink before returning to the task of finding the knife tip and bone fragments found in the x-ray that were preventing the writer's diaphragm from properly filling his lungs with air.

He was called to scrub in and lead the surgical team because it was not unlike the emergency surgery he had had to perform on his then girlfriend, Kate Beckett when she was on this very operating table two months ago. Josh knew he really had four lives hanging in the balance under his highly trained hands, not just one. Richard Castle had a daughter and a mother who loved him, and depended on him, not to mention Kate. He personally disliked the man, but his professional and personal ethics would not permit him to let this man slip away from him.

The high pitched whine announcing "asystole" once again sounded.

"Don't you dare, you son of a bitch!" Josh muttered out loud, not caring who heard him. "Kate chose you over me, and you do _NOT_ get die on her now!"

He put out his hand to the surgical nurse and ordered "10 CC's epi, heart needle!" and almost instantly the needle was slapped into his hand, and he injected it directly into his heart, and it started beating again.

"We got all the fragments, doctor," the chief of surgery told him, "nicely done."

before he turned to the surgical nurse and instructed her to close.

After ensuring that his patient was properly stabilized and on his way to the recovery room, Josh Davidson showered, changed into a clean set of scrubs and collapsed on a couch in the break room. The three hour surgery had exhausted him thoroughly. It was the last gift he could ever give to the woman he still cared for deeply, though he knew she didn't love him. The time had come to cut his losses and move on.

One of the other doctors he had met through Doctors Without Borders had been clearly interested in him, and had even invited him to dinner while she was in town. He found himself drawn to her, but he had demurred, hoping Kate would change her mind. Now that he was sure that wasn't going to happen, he figured perhaps fate was trying to tell him something. He fished his cell phone out of the holster on his belt and dialed her number.

"Hi Jessica...it's Josh," he said when she picked up, "if you're still interested in dinner tomorrow night, I'm free."

….

Kate and Alexis had not been more than a few paces apart during the three hours Rick had been in surgery. For the first half an hour they had clung to each other in shock and absolute fear for the man that both of them loved dearly. Afraid they might never see him alive again.

Ryan, Esposito, and Lanie had shown up less that twenty minutes after Kate's frantic phone call had gone out that Castle had nearly died and been wheeled off to surgery. As Lanie cleared the elevator doors and strode into the waiting room, Alexis stepped in front of Kate, shooting a warning look at the medical examiner, her expression saying both, _'thank you for coming'_ and '_behave yourself'_ at the same time. She would obviously brook no repeats of her behavior the previous day.

"Easy does it, _Little Castle_. We come in peace." Esposito said, his hands up in front of him.

Ryan was clearly shocked at this display. The last time he had seen Kate and Alexis in this very room, Castle's daughter seemed more inclined to claw Kate's eyes out, than leap to her defense. Yet here she was, prepared to go to blows with Lanie Parrish (who thoroughly intimidated him, and he was armed) to protect her.

With that out of the way, Martha's arrival with Jim Beckett completely undid Alexis, who fled to her grandmother and completely broke down in her arms. Her sobs broke the hearts of everyone present, including Lanie's. The poor girl's entire world was hanging in the balance here and everybody knew it. Now was not the time to pour salt into old wounds. Ryan immediately got on the phone to his fiance` Jenny, told her he'd be out for a while, and asked her if she could use her key to his place and pick him up some fresh clothes.

Kate Beckett stood off to the side, not quite sure anymore where she fit with these people she knew so well, yet hurt so badly over the last two months. The only thing she distinctly remembered from Lanie's visit to her apartment, other than Alexis completely shutting her down was her opening statement upon arrival.

"_Do you have _any_ idea what you've put us all through?"_

Those words had cut her to the bone, and she really had no reasonable argument to counter them, because Lanie was right. _She_ had done this. _She_ had inflicted this pain upon her friends, her co-workers, the people who loved her most. She had even shut her father out as soon as she could stand and walk for herself.

They had done nothing to deserve the hurt and pain she had heaped upon them, and for what? To avoid the appearance of weakness? To avoid the very possibility that Richard Castle really loved her? That she just might (correction, she _definitely_ did) love him back, but didn't know how to let him in?

"_Don't even get me _started_ about the unmitigated hell you put Castle through! That man was an absolute wreck after you disappeared!"_

To know that despair was the last thing Castle felt as he lay bleeding in his office for his daughter to find. That _she_ had put that despair in his heart, accused him leaving Captain Montgomery to die in that hanger. Lied about hearing his declaration of love right to his face, told him she would call him in a few days, then disappeared off the face of the planet for two months.

"_Would it have _killed_ you to pick up a phone, or even send him a text message to let him know you were alive?"_

All it would have taken to ease his troubled mind would have been a single phone call. Two taps on her smart phone and a whispered _"Hey Castle, I'm ok."_

All he would have needed to push back his own guilt, his own demons, would have been the sound of her voice over the phone and she had denied it to him. Now he was trapped alone in his own mind with only his guilt and his demons for company and there was _nothing_ she could do to help him.

"_Did it really have to take him nearly being stabbed to death to get you off your self centered ass?"_

This was the cruelest cut of all, because that is precisely what it _had_ taken for her to see past her paranoia and her stubborn pride to realize that time had _not_ stopped, her friends had _not_ stopped hurting because _**Detective Kate Beckett**_ wasn't ready to deal with it. The most important living person in her life (aside from her father) being at death's door was pretty much the only thing that would have dragged her back to New York City this soon.

She finally realized what her father had been trying to tell her, before she pushed him away too. Finally, truly saw how foolish it had been to refuse the help of the people who loved her, cut herself off from her support system, her team, her extended family and she hated herself for it.

_'Maybe Alexis _should_ have hit me,'_ she thought to herself, _'dragged me into an empty room and beaten me senseless.' _It was what she felt she deserved for all the pain she'd caused.

But she didn't. Alexis looked past her own needs, her own desires, had gone out of her way to take care of her, even to the point of defending her against her angry friends. Placing herself bodily between her and them, not once, but twice. She couldn't in her wildest imaginings comprehend why Alexis would want anything to do with her when anyone else in the teen's position would have reveled in making her suffer.

"_It's nothing that dad wouldn't have done..if he were here."_

Then it hit her like a runaway train, how he had been able to tackle her so quickly that day in the cemetery. He had already been moving before the shot, he had seen it coming and had tried to take the bullet for her.

"Oh...my...God..." she whispered aloud, remembering what Espo had said about his smart board's hard drive and CPU being taken. What he and the boys had likely been doing since her shooting...hunting for her sniper, until the break in.

Her musings were interrupted by a comforting hand on her shoulder, she turned, buried herself into her father's embrace, and began to sob uncontrollably as she clung to him for dear life.

"It's all my fault, daddy," Kate sobbed into her father's chest, "I...hurt him...broke him...pushed him away...and he went after _them_ himself...and so they...so they..." before she completely broke down and her words were lost in her keening sobs. No longer caring who saw her crumble.

Before she knew what was happening, another set of hands were at her shoulder, she turned her head to see that it was Alexis, who pulled her into an embrace of her own. Followed shortly by Lanie, Martha, and then even Ryan and Espo. The wall between her and her team was finally broken. This time she would accept their support, she needed it now, more than ever.

At that point, the chief of surgery emerged from the operating room, looking tired and disheveled from three hours of emergency surgery.

"I assume you are the family and friends of Richard Castle?" he began,

Martha's head came up, she broke away from the others and approached the doctor.

"I'm his mother, Martha Rodgers." she said with the quiet dignity that none of them felt.

"I'm pleased to say that we were able to find the obstruction that had prevented his diaphragm from properly filling his lungs. It was the tip of a knife blade, likely from the knife used stab him."

This time it was Ryan's turn to step away. He flashed his badge for the doctor to see.

"I'm Detective Ryan, NYPD, I'm the primary on his case. Has it been collected? It is evidence in the investigation of his attempted murder."

"It has been recovered and bagged, detective," he replied, "my assistant would be happy to show you to operating room two so you can collect it." with that, Ryan thanked the doctor, and cast a sympathetic glance to Kate, who mouthed the word "go" to him. Espo split off from the group and went with him to collect the evidence.

The Chief of surgery turned back to Martha and continued.

"Mr. Castle shows every indication that the surgery was successful. We will keep him on the respirator for a couple of days until his diaphragm fully heals then try taking him off from it again. His other injuries were not as severe as we had initially feared, and barring any further complications, he should make a full recovery."

This news got the predictable result and everyone began to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

"Can he have visitors?" Martha asked.

"I think we can allow it, as long as it's kept brief." The doctor replied, "He really won't begin to show visible signs of improvement for a couple of days, but he definitely seems to be out of the woods."

"Thank you, doctor for saving my son."

The doctor nodded and as he turned to leave, said "We should have him in a regular hospital bed shortly after he's moved from recovery. The duty nurse will be able to answer any questions you might have." With that, he took his leave.

Kate fished her cell phone out of her purse and sent a text to Ryan and Espo with the good news from the doctor, which received a nearly immediate reply stating they were on their way to the precinct to log the knife tip as evidence in their investigation of Rick's attempted homicide.

Every synapse in Kate's being burned to be in on the hunt. Her detective's instincts and her emotions, though usually at war with each other were in perfect synch for once. She wanted to find the ones who tried to kill the man she loved, the ones who also damaged his daughter's psyche in the process. Find them, and make them pay. She cursed her broken body, for not being up to the task, but when she was fit for duty, she would find them, and there would be a reckoning.

Until then she would do what she could to help Alexis and Rick pick up the pieces as best they could. She would make it her mission in life. Her mother's case would be set aside. The living go before the dead.

She knew in her heart that her mother would understand.

* * *

**Author's note** I'm sure many of you have been asking yourselves **"What the hell is "asystole"?**" It means the lack of electrical activity in the heart. Otherwise known as cardiac arrest. If there are any doctors or med students about feel free to correct me. (yes that means you too Nerwen)


	10. Demons and Angels

**Chapter Ten  
****Demons and Angels**

_Richard Castle was trapped in darkness...he didn't want to be here. The light beckoned, it was so close he could almost touch it. There was peace there, there was love there, he knew if he could reach it he would be happy. But just before he could reach it, it was suddenly snuffed out...and like a hundred times before, the voices came...His own personal furies sent by the universe to drive him mad._

"_She doesn't love you!" whispered Meredith seductively._

"_She abandoned you to your fate!" whispered Gina._

"_She left you to die!" whispered Kyra_

"_It's all your fault!" whispered Rick Rodgers_

"_What could she possibly see in you? She has Josh!" whispered Sophia_

_He tried to run...tried to fight...but was stopped by an invisible wall. He beat his fists on it till they bled, but couldn't get through...the voices kept pace with him...in unison now, surrounding him, his own macabre Greek chorus whispering his own worst fears. _

"_It's all your fault!"_

"_She left you to die!"_

"_She never loved you!"_

"_NOOOOOO!" he screamed as loud as he could as he fell to his knees, his hands over his ears, unable to shut out the voices, "Shut up! Shut up! **SHUT UP!**"_

_Suddenly, unlike all the other times before, another voice echoed across the darkness. A voice bringing with it light and warmth and love, called out to him. It was Kate...she had come for him at last!_

"I love you Rick...please...please don't die.."

_The wall shattered. He was infused with the light that only **Kate's** voice could bring, the strength only _**she**_ could give him._

"I need you to fight...for me...please..." her voice pleaded.

_Her light washed over him, and through him...the voices and ghosts of all the others were burned away by it, silencing them, returning them to their places in the past. Where they belonged._

_The future beckoned..._His_ future...out of the darkness...in the light...with Kate._

_Her voice was his clarion call to battle. She needed him._

_**He would fight.**_


	11. Catharsis

**Chapter Eleven**

**Catharsis**

8:00 PM

When Kate and Alexis walked in the door to Kate's apartment they were both physically and emotionally drained. The events of that day had run them through the ringer, leaving both of them numb. Shortly after Rick had come out of recovery and had been settled back into his private room they had each only had a precious few minutes with him before being gently ushered out by the duty nurse. Barely enough time to squeeze his hand, brush a quick kiss to his forehead and offer a whispered "I love you" into this ear.

Though it was enough to know that his surgery was a success and he was going to pull through, they would both have liked to spend a little more time at his beside. To be there if he gave even the slightest sign of waking up.

Martha had assured them both that she wooed let them know if there was any change, though the attending physician had explained that he was so thoroughly sedated from his surgery that he would likely be out for the rest of the night and well into the next day, so Martha convinced them both the best course of action was to go back to her place and try to get some rest.

By mutual agreement, they had a very light dinner of leftover macaroni and cheese and some mixed fruit and went straight to bed. Both were planning to be up early to return to the hospital.

2:45 AM

Kate had given up on any pretense of sleep two hours ago. Settling in under the covers with Heat Wave, Rick's unofficial first love letter to her, instead. She needed to lose herself in his words, feel them envelop her, comfort her, even though she'd read them several times over. Page 105 still gave her that same sharp thrill it had when she read it the first time. When she was lost in these pages, in his words, she was transported to a place where she felt whole again. Even if only for a little while.

Just as she was getting to the end of the book, she heard a quiet, tentative tapping at her door.

"Detective Beckett...may I come in?"

Kate rose from her bed, and opened her bedroom door to find Alexis in a similar state as herself. Tired beyond measure, but unable to find solace in slumber. The events of that day had obviously shaken them both to the core. She urged the girl to have a seat on her bed while she pulled up her chair.

"I guess I'm not the only one not getting much rest tonight." Kate said finally.

Alexis looked up at her, her pale blue eyes shimmering in the dim light, fumbling for words. '_So like her father.'_ Kate thought.

"I know they say he's going to be all right now...but...I just keep seeing him stop breathing," she said shakily, "the doctors working on him, hearing his heart stop..." Alexis turned her head away for a moment, her hair blocking her face as she wiped away an errant tear, "I can't get it out of my head, like the...like the...the day I found him...in his study.."

Kate moved from her chair to sit beside Alexis on the bed and moved to put an arm around the girl's slender shoulders, but Alexis put out a hand to stop her. Making the conscious effort to control her breathing.

"Det...Kate..." Alexis began, her voice hushed "you need to know how absolutely devastated dad was when you left, when you never called. He blamed himself for your shooting, and he thought that you blamed him too. He thought you didn't care about him anymore and it was tearing him apart."

Kate's own eyes began to water at this, she struggled for a response, but Alexis continued on.

"He became distant, spent most of his time either at the precinct or in his study. There were times when he didn't come home for days and wouldn't tell me where he'd gone. Once he even came home with a black eye and bruised knuckles. I was going out of my mind with worry."

Tears were flowing down Kate's cheeks. She was making no effort to hold them back. It was everything she'd feared when she heard about his stabbing.

"It was even worse after the new captain kicked him out of the precinct. He thought the one chance he had to make things right between you again had slipped through his fingers. That you had gone off with Josh and he was left with nothing but this big hole inside and nothing could fill it. He'd spend hours just staring at his smart board, or in his room, crying himself to sleep."

Kate buried her head in her hands, it was even worse than she thought.

"I hated you." Alexis continued, her blue eyes flaring at the memory "More and more with each passing day. Everything Lanie said when she came to visit. I felt it too."

Kate had pulled her legs up and wrapped her hands around them, unable to look Alexis in the eye, all pretense of control now gone.

"Then I found him on the floor of his study...bleeding...calling your name...he begged me to tell you that he forgave you...that he was sorry...and that he loved you...and he always will...even if you didn't love him back. My father...was...was...bleeding to death...in my arms and...and...and.. all he could think about was you."

It was then, as Alexis finally burst into tears that Kate truly broke. His words in the cemetery ringing in her ears. _"Kate...I love you...I love you Kate."_

She let go of her legs and pulled Alexis into her arms as the girl sobbed bitterly.

"Oh...Alexis...no..." Kate whispered into the girl's hair, "I do love him...I do...you have no idea how much...I was so messed up and afraid...afraid that he didn't mean it...that he only said it because he thought I was dying...when he told me he loved me...afraid that I couldn't be...enough for him...that he deserved so much better than someone as broken as me..."

"Deserve...has nothing...has nothing...to do with it...Kate" Alexis sobbed, "he loves you...he meant every word...and it was tearing him apart.."

"Please...promise me...promise me you won't hurt him like that again...he wouldn't survive it...please..." Alexis begged

"I promise...I'll try to be better...make myself better...for him...for you...for me." Kate replied, "I want him in my life, I don't think I could go on if he wasn't...I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..."

Both of them continued sobbing until they cried themselves out. As Kate's tears began to dry up, she realized that somehow, Alexis had cried herself to sleep.

She eased the girl back onto her bed, covered her with her blanket and after brushing a light kiss to her forehead, climbed into the other side of her bed and slowly drifted off to sleep.


	12. Resurrection

**Chapter Twelve  
****Resurrection**

When Alexis woke the next morning, it took her a few minutes to recall where she was. She blushed for a moment when it occurred to her that she was in Kate's bed. That moment of embarrassment was followed by no small amount of guilt that she had laid so much on the woman the night before. Had it not been so vital to to know where Kate stood as far as her father's broken heart was concerned, she would have let it go. She had learned so much about Kate's side of the story these past few days that she thought she understood her better than she had before.

But she couldn't let it go. She had to make absolutely certain that Beckett understood how much damage she would do to him if she ran out on him again. Considering how very much she had hurt him this last time, next time they might not get him back. She had to know the stakes she was playing for and the consequences to the people she cared about, all of them, if she ever let this happen again. Running away to suffer alone didn't make anything better for anybody. Least of all for Kate.

When Alexis exited the bathroom, fresh from her shower, casually dressed in a pair of comfortable jeans, a Stanford sweatshirt and sensible shoes, her fiery red hair tied up in a loose braid down her shoulder, Beckett was busy making a full breakfast, much like the one she had made the first morning she'd stayed at the loft after the crazed serial killer had blown up her previous apartment. A lazy smile appeared on her lips, she hadn't realized how hungry she had been till she could smell the scrambled eggs and bacon.

Kate wasn't sure when they'd be eating again, depending on how things went at the hospital. She wanted to make sure they both left the apartment that morning on a full stomach. Her job in homicide generally made her a little leery of eating a full breakfast. Given the nature of some of the crime scenes she'd witnessed, a full stomach was rarely a good idea. Today however, she had Alexis to think of, and she felt the need to set a good example.

The two of them ate their rather large breakfast in a less than comfortable, but companionable silence. Neither of them seemed to want to break the silence during their meal. Wen their stomachs were full, and they set about sharing the task of washing the breakfast dishes, it was Alexis who finally broke the stalemate.

"I'm sorry I dumped so much stuff on you last night." she said quietly, "the things dad said to me when I found him, I barely remembered until they came tumbling out of my mouth, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"It's ok, Alexis," Kate replied, "you had a lot on your mind, and seeing him almost...die...again right in front of us opened up a lot of old wounds for us both."

Her breathing stuttered for a moment as she sought to control herself, then reached down and squeezed Alexis' hand, and waited for the girl to look her in the eye.

"I know I have a lot to answer for, a lot of things to set right, with both you and your father. I know you don't have a lot of cause to trust me, but I swear to you, I'll do whatever it takes to earn back your trust. You were right before, "I'm sorry" doesn't even begin to cover it."

Alexis gave Kate a thin smile and a reassuring squeeze of her hand. She could sense the change in the older woman. A strength of spirit that had been missing from her personality since before her shooting. If her father's near fatal had had any sort of positive outcome, this would be it. Perhaps when the next year was up and she went away to college she might just begin to feel better about going away to Stanford and leaving her father in the care of Kate Beckett. She wasn't quite there yet, Kate still had a lot to prove as far as she was concerned, but this was a reassuring step in the right direction.

"Just be gentle with him Kate, it will take some time, just be patient, I know that you have your own issues to work out too."

Some day she may even forgive her. She wasn't quite there yet, but someday.

….

The next few days were, for the most part, quiet and uneventful. The investigation into Castle's stabbing stalled due to a lack of evidence. Though tentatively linked to Kate's shooting given what he had been working on, there was no concrete evidence to base that connection on. His attacker had left no fingerprints at the scene and very little trace evidence other than the tip of the knife recovered during Castle's surgery and a pattern of injury consistent (missing only the fatal thrust) with the M.O. of Dick Coonan, who was known to be dead.

Ryan and Espo worked themselves to the bone trying to solve it, but the evidence simply wasn't there and the case went cold. They were finally forced to concede defeat and Gates reassigned them to other cases. When they came to visit Kate and Alexis in her apartment to admit defeat, with their heads hung and somber expressions on their faces, they both swore that they would stay on the lookout for any new leads. They would not allow this case to be closed until it was solved, if it took the rest of their lives.

No matter what Captain Victoria Gates thought, they considered Rick Castle to be one of theirs, and so did half of the precinct. If she didn't like it...too bad. When Alexis had gone to "her" room to compose herself, they handed Kate a signed petition from every detective and uniform in the squad, including Karpowski, attesting to Rick Castle's character and his contributions to their solve rate. At Kate's softened expression, Ryan merely added,

"If Castle wants back in, and goes over Gates' head to the Mayor, make sure to give him this, it should grease the wheels a bit. "_Iron Gates"_ should know what side her bread is buttered on."

When she got to the bottom of the petition, it was noted that nearly every detective in the squad had threatened to seek transfer to another precinct if he wasn't reinstated. Even if every transfer request was denied, it was what amounted to a no-confidence vote from every one of her detectives if she refused.

Kate folded it up and put it away, wiping a tear out of her eye so the boys wouldn't see her, before Alexis could see the document, she knew the girl would be sensitive about her father going back. He probably would anyway, but there was no sense in creating a more tense situation for her than necessary.

….

On the third day after Rick's emergency surgery, the doctors once again removed his breathing tube, and three sets of eyes watched attentively as Rick took his first unaided breath since his stabbing. When it was establish by the doctors that his breathing was stable and he showed no further signs of respiratory distress, his sedatives were dialed back accordingly, allowing for him to gradually emerge from the medically induced coma and switching him from the breathing mask to the nasal cannula.

Kate, Alexis and Martha all breathed quiet sighs of relief. It was the biggest major hurdle he had overcome since he'd gone back under the knife. Alexis openly, unashamedly wept for joy. Kate texted Lanie the good news and told her to spread the word. By the end of the day, there would be enough flowers in his room to fill a flower shop.

They all sat at his bedside for the next hour, simply listening to him breathe in reverent silence, basking in this minor miracle given how close he had been to death's door over a week ago.

The following day, Kate was reading her brand new copy of Heat Rises out loud at Rick's bedside. She had read it all in one go the night before and cried inconsolably for nearly an hour after reading the ending. She could sense his crushing guilt in every chapter, it struck her where she lived. Right down to Rook taking the bullet for Nikki, just like Rick had tried to do for her. Alexis had slipped into her room with her and rocked her to sleep.

She didn't notice as his eyes began to flutter and he opened them for the first time, when she paused at the end of chapter twelve.

"I hope I don't spoil the ending for you, but this is soooo meta..."

"Castle!" Kate said breathlessly as sh nearly dropped his book in shock. She briefly flashed him her megawatt smile then inexplicably burst into tears. Rick had not seen her this emotional since she had shot Coonan. Though it felt incredibly heavy to him for some reason, he lid his hand over hers on the side of his bed. She took it in both of hers and brought it to the side of her face, kissing the back of it lightly.

"You had us all scared to death!" she breathed, barely able to get the entire sentence out between sobs.

"What happened?" he asked, confused by her histrionics, he wasn't used to this side of Kate Beckett, she just wasn't normally this weepy or clingy. That was his department.

"I remember trying to work on the outline for the next book and then everything went black, followed by some really surreal dreams, the next thing I know, here I am."

"You...you...were stabbed...multiple times...just like...just like...my mother. A-Alexis...found you...in...in your study." Kate stammered out between sobs.

Castle could not contain the horror he felt, the terrible weight it must have put on Alexis' slender shoulders, even if he tried.

"Oh...my...God...Alexis..." as the implication of everything Kate had said hit him. '_I was stabbed just like Coonan stabbed her mother and her associates...why am I not dead?' _he thought to himself.

Before he could ponder this thought to its logical conclusion, Alexis was standing in the doorway.

"Daddy!" was all the warning either himself or Kate got before she flew into the room, an angelic look of absolute joy on her face as she wrapped her arms around his neck and showered his cheeks and forehead with kisses. All talk of his near fatal stabbing and it's implications in relation to Kate's mother's murder were set aside as they both basked in the glow of Alexis' unfettered joy.

Alexis babbled on for the better part of an hour before she began to get a little hoarse, when she noticed that Kate and her father had been staring into each others eyes for nearly the entire time, so she cleared her throat to get their attention.

"I think I'll go outside and call Grams and give her the good news. I'm _sure_ you two have _something_ to discuss." The second part seemed to be directed at Kate.

Almost as soon as the door slid shut behind her, Kate pulled a chair up to Rick's bedside, then leaned forward as she sat down and touched her forehead to his.

"Castle...I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..." she whispered as fresh tears slid down her face. Over the next twenty minutes she poured out all of her sins and her regrets to him. The lie she'd told him in the hospital two months ago, her breakup with Josh when she'd found out he'd hit him in the waiting room, her decision to run away and hide without so much as a text message to let him know she'd be back. Her utter devastation when she'd heard he'd been stabbed, the emptiness and grief she'd felt in equal measure when Alexis had forced her to look at his broken body in the ICU.

All of it came tumbling out of her without any kind of a filter. She actually felt oddly lighter when she was done.

Rick sat there stunned at everything she'd said. She had never completely opened herself to him like this before. She had given him everything, but it was what she said next that really threw him.

"I love you Richard Castle."

Rick rocked back in his bed his gift for words, not to mention the capacity for speech abandoned him, as Kate leaned in and brushed her lips against his, gradually the shock wore off, and he pushed back with his lips to hers. When their kiss broke, her eyes were closed.

Richard Castle didn't know what would come next, but he was sure of one thing.

From here on out, The two of them would face it together.

Always.


	13. Vignettes

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Vignettes**

September 19th, 2011

When both Kate and Rick returned to the precinct to polite applause and back slapping (very gently in Rick's case) Captain Gates only emerged from her office once, and only to shut down the revelry after a reasonable amount of time and admonish them all to get back to work. After sternly ordering them back into her office with her, she returned Kate's badge and sidearm to her. (she had completed her mandatory psych evaluation weeks ago, and re-qualified with her pistol two days ago.

Gates had been less than happy when the mayor of New York had called her _at home_ to let her know that Richard Castle would indeed be returning to the 12th Precinct as Kate's partner, and she was put on notice to extend the writer _every courtesy_. She didn't like having her authority undermined, but she served at the pleasure of the Mayor of New York just like every other city employee. She also certainly could not afford the embarrassment of an en-masse request for transfer from every single one of her detectives. It would reflect badly on her leadership. She knew for the time being that the ball was in the writer's court, though she was indeed still calling the plays.

With the exception of a mild case of "first day on the job" jitters on Kate's part their first case was uneventful. Between the two of them it was a relatively simple case to get them back on the horse, so to speak.

Though Kate had listened in on the conversation Rick had with the mysterious figure known only as Mr. Smith. He had really not offered any new insights into her mother's case, only his admonishment that it was in her best interest to leave it alone. She had shown admirable restraint in keeping quiet during the call and though it sang out to her blood, she saw the rationale behind stepping back. After this past summer, she was painfully aware that it wasn't just her life in the balance anymore.

With no new leads, and far too much for her to lose, it was best to simply let sleeping dragons lie.

….

November 1st, 2011

When the bank exploded during her call with Ryan and Esposito, all of the air seemed to be sucked out of the NYPD mobile command post. Kate lost all focus. Her heart clenched in her chest and she felt like she was going to be sick. She and Rick had packed a lot of living and loving into the past three months but not nearly enough to last her an entire lifetime without him. She felt dead inside.

Had she pushed too hard on Trapper John when she threatened to walk in and shoot him in the head?

"_What have I done?"_

Kate dimly recalled stepping out of the trailer and staring remorsefully at the smoking wreckage that was once the outer facade of New Amsterdam Bank and Trust. She could hear Alexis Castle screaming incoherently from behind the police barricade where she had ordered the uniforms to take her after reading Rick's hastily scrawled note about the C4. Her high pitched shrieking piercing through every other sound in the area to stab directly into Kate's heart.

Her own grief would have to wait, however as she donned her bulletproof vest and pulled back the action on her sidearm, chambering a round. If Rick and Martha were indeed dead, she needed to see it firsthand, because if this were truly the case, then she would now be all that Alexis had left. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes to push back that dark evil thought. She needed to hold it together, for Alexis, if not for herself.

"_**Castle!"**_

She had called his name over and over again since she entered the bank. She felt a little more empty each and every time he didn't answer her. Each time she would call his name a little louder, with a little bit more desperation in her tone.

"_**CASTLE!"**_

"Beckett! In here!"

She had barely heard his muffled response from inside the cage. But when she turned, color and warmth once again entered her world as she saw his jaunty half-wave.

"They're in here!" she called out hoarsely at the ESU squad who had fanned out to check the bank's interior. She holstered her weapon, and pulled the multi-tool out of her belt as she knelt in front of him to cut his restraints. She couldn't keep the stupid, beaming smile off of her face, she had no words to describe her absolute joy at finding him and Martha alive and well.

"The things I have to do to get your attention, Katherine Beckett...sheesh!"

Rick's petulant tone belying the immeasurable love flowing out of his blue eyes and pouring straight into her green ones, filling her up with his inner light.

"Can't you just send me flowers or serenade me under my window with a boom box like normal people?" Kate replied, the look of absolute joy on her face belying the snarky tone in her voice.

"What fun would that be?" Rick shot back, as they outwardly played their well rehearsed game, "You know me, I'm _such_ an attention whore, I need to make a big splash!"

Their subtext and eye-sex laden banter would have gone on for several sugar shock inducing minutes had Rick not received a sharp smack to the back of his head from his mother.

"Will you _please_ just haul off and _**kiss her**_ already?" Martha interjected with mock indignation, an evil grin lighting up her face "You aren't the only ones in the room you know!"

Rick enthusiastically did exactly what his mother told him to do without complaint for the first time in his adult life. For the next few minutes while their lips were locked together, Kate forgot where she was and only dimly recalled her own name, casually dropping her multi-tool into Martha's lap as she grabbed the lapel of Rick's jacket and pulled his lips hungrily back to hers for round two.

Martha sat there for a moment, grinning like the cat who ate the canary, then adjusted the tool in her hands to free herself.

….

May 7th 2012

He had begged her to walk away from this. Let this Cole Maddox go, but she refused to listen to him. This was bigger than she knew. He hadn't gotten much from the few times he had interacted with Smith in the last year, but that much was made abundantly clear. She was still suffering from the delusion that this was merely a matter of a well connected perp who had simply gotten away with murder. What they were dealing with was worse than a dragon, this was more like a hydra who came back twice as powerful every time it was struck. When it had become clear that she was not going to see reason he played the very last card he had left to play.

"_You're right, Kate...it's your life... you can throw it away if you want...but don't expect me to stand around and watch...I'm done."_

It nearly choked the life out of him to turn on his heel and walk out of her door. But he couldn't watch her die again, like he had last summer. He would never survive it. She had called or texted him multiple times in the last hour and a half, but he had hit ignore on all of them. He had asked her to choose between the case and him and she had made her choice.

He stared morosely out the window at the night-scape of Manhattan until there was a loud knock on his door. When he opened it, Kate stood framed in his doorway, soaked to the bone.

"What do you want, Beckett?" he asked, angrily.

"You" she replied. "I just want you."


	14. Epilogue

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Epilogue**

Rick and Kate rarely spoke again of the dark days of the summer of 2011. The memories of that terrible, but pivotal summer were just too painful for either of them to contemplate other than to note that the nightmare of those three months finally brought them together. Finally made them look at each other in a new light and see the love that was truly there for both of them. There were still fights and slammed doors and hurt feelings, but they managed to get through it together. In 2013 they were wed in a small intimate ceremony on the beach outside Rick's house in the Hamptons and honeymooned in Maui.

Alexis graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University, then went on to Johns Hopkins to study forensic medicine, much to the delight of Lanie Parrish, who had become something of a mentor to the young woman. Her trust issues involving Kate did lead to tension between them, and some arguments with her father from time to time. Eventually the two of them settled their differences amicably, in time for the birth of Rick and Kate's first two children, a set of fraternal twins. One, a green eyed fiery redhead they named Rebecca Marie Castle (the older by a minute and a half) and the other a blue eyed raven haired little girl they named Johanna Alexis Castle.

In the fullness of time, Kate Beckett Castle moved up the promotion grid. Ending her twenty year law enforcement career as the chief of detectives for the NYPD. Rick went on to write ten more Nikki Heat books, each one a love letter to the woman who finally tamed him, before helping Kate write an autobiographical account of her side of the story of the Armen/Beckett murders and the Dragon conspiracy. They had two more children a boy they named James Royce Castle (whom they nicknamed Roy) and another girl they named Miranda Elaine Castle. Their large albeit unconventional family was a source of great joy to them both for the rest of their lives.

They lived happily (mostly) ever after.

Always.


End file.
